■ By BRENDAN McGILLIGAN

Rising high: Stephen Ferguson in action for the UAE

AS Ireland ran World Cup holders Australia close in the final Pool A match of the 1999 World Cup, a generation of young Irish rugby players was inspired.
The next crop bore witness that the Irish could compete on the greatest stage against the world’s best.
Watching in Derry was an 11-year-old Stephen Ferguson, who then joined his local club with the dream of playing in a World Cup for Ireland.
One of those dreams never came to fruition, but Ferguson could be on the precipice of featuring at ...